Homeland Lunacy

Wait.  Wait.  Hold on.  I have the answer to all of the world’s problems, and it was right in front of my ….. arms …..  all the time.

Heard about the senseless massacres in Oakland, Binghamton and Pittsburgh?  Seven policemen and a score of civilians were shot dead by raging gunmen.  So seven public servants were murdered this week.  Hold a fancy funeral with bagpipes a-playing, give the wife a fancy schmancy folded American flag, and then go out and recruit numerous replacements so that this scenario can repeat itself over and over again.  But by all means, do not deal with the root of the problem.  Could that be our breezy wheezy easy access to guns?  Perish the thought.  Better to live in denial and keep sacrificing our citizens’ lives.  So how about this: instead of begging our “allies”, i.e. Europe, China, Japan, to collaborate with us in securing the world’s financial wobblies and security concerns against global terrorism, how about we just take some of our homegrown, red-blooded American lunatics, who have the absolute Constitutional right to bear arms, and throw them in to the fray to fight the terrorists?  That would be a great use of our resources.  After all, we do not have much money left, so why not use our unending supply of unbalanced but armed citizens as pawns for trade?

If you take a look back about 50 years in our history, you will see that the shooters of JFK, Martin Luther King, RFK, President Ford, President Reagan and John Lennon were not political madmen; they were just regular madmen who were able to put their hands on very available guns.  Hell:  John Hinckley, Jr., Reagan’s shooter, claimed his rapture for Jodie Foster made him do it.

So massacre upon massacre upon massacre has overtaken us.  Anything less than two a week would be cause for worry, but not, God forbid, any prophylactic action.  The conservative talking heads, such as Glen Beck, have called for Americans to go out and buy guns before President Obama outlaws them.  Whether or not it is a result of this fear-mongering, the purchases of guns have increased significantly over the last few months.  And do not dare to tell me that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people,” because I will kick you in the crotch for repeating that ancient adage.  Other countries have nutcases also.  What they do not have are liberal gun laws that give their citizens the right to bear arms.  Go figure.

So here’s the plan.  With Europe, Russia, China and others refusing  to not only add some cold cash to the global stimulus, but also giving the cold shoulder to contributing troops to fight terrorism in Afghanistan, we should gather up our lunatics, along with their cache of legal arms,  and ship them to all the hot spots in the world.  Fight insanity with insanity.  Case closed.

I have some relevant weekend reading for you.  Paul Krugman of the New York Times, wrote a very clear article on why China, in all of its cowardice, is appealing for a world currency to replace the dollar that has formerly fulfilled that role.  Just plain old sour grapes.  China was flying high when the dollar was also soaring.  Now that calamity has replaced calmness in the world financial markets, China is crying, “No fair”  because they are inundated with low interest Treasury bills from a nation in severe financial distress.  Tough titties, China.  No one told you to put all of your eggs in one basket.  It astounds me to see seasoned investors, old-as-the-hills corporations and some nations’ entire net worth placed in one non-diversified basket.  No matter that such an investment has been historically safe and that, to quote many financial shamans, “If that goes down the tubes, everything will also”.  How many “safe” investments have we seen over the last year crumble and disintegrate?  Stupid is as stupid does.  Anyway, here is Krugman’s column.  It is a very good one in terms of its explanation of China’s selfish rationale for a global currency:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1

Furthermore, as for the lack of participation of other nations in the economic stimulus, they have said that their citizens are not getting as hurt as Americans are because the Europeans have a social net in place that deflects the effects of the recession/depression.  That is true.  But wait.  Hold on.  All that needs to happen is for the scales to tip a bit in an even worse direction.  The Europeans will be screaming for our help faster than you can say “Told you so.”

David Brooks, also of the New york Times, had a good piece on the basic causes of this depression, a concise, easy-to-understand explanation of what has befallen us:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/opinion/03brooks.html

Then, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post came out with a story on the former AIG chairman and company rapist, Hank Greenberg.  I have always placed a lot of blame at Greenberg’s feet for what transpired at AIG.  If you agree with Brooks’ overall thesis, then do read Milbank’s specific blame-pointing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040203600.html

As for our international allies chickening out also of contributing to the global fight against terrorism, I can guarantee you this one thing: if any radical militant group even attempted, much less succeeded with,  an attack within the borders of any of these stingy allies’ countries, specifically France and Germany, these same chickensh**, spineless and backward looking nations would be the first ones to call on the U. S. to bail them out, once again.  “Come save us!”

Never mind.  We don’t need you.  We will just pack up our gun toting mental maniacs and deploy them to fight the terrorists, whenever and wherever. Go team!

Enough of the depressing world situation.  If you were kind enough to slog through all of this post, here are some weekend funnies for you.

Let me start with one of my fave topics:  Sarah Palin.  It appears that the GOP really does eat its own:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/03/ted-stevens-should-run-against-palin-alaska-republican-says/

Also, I have to admit that regardless of how gorgeous Lady O. looked in Europe, attention is needed in the shoe department.  Unlike Sarah and me, Lady O. is not a shoe whore.  However, she should spruce up her feet a little more.

President Obama was given the Galaxy British Book Award in the category of best biography for his book, “Dreams From My Father.”  Can you believe that we finally have a literate President?

Have any of you seen the latest Charmin toilet paper commercial, the one with those cute (but disgusting) bears?  This particular one talks of how wonderful Charmin is because “it doesn’t leave any pieces behind.”  In the clip below, you can see small pieces of paper remaining on the bear.  However, in the actual commercial there are no paper pieces visible and I do believe they are talking about pieces of “other” material:

A golden oldie comes to mind:

Dave Ross, in his commentary on CBS radio, has a great addition yesterday, regarding President Obama bowing to the Saudi King.  Just go to this link and then click on “Obama Bows To Saudi King — What’s The Big Deal?”:

http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1510558&nid=524

Finally, after getting a wee bit disgusted with national affairs such as the likes of gun-toting lunatics, Larry Summers taking huge paychecks from those exact people who brought our economy to its knees, Obama and Geithner trying to circumvent Congress’ stiff penalties on those unearned bonuses, I do believe a little R and R is necessary.  Oh yeah.  I almost forgot:  I heard on the local news today that the Department of Homeland Security is relocating to the grounds of Saint Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital.  How appropriate.  What happened to all of the inmates, including the infamous John Hinckley, when the hospital closed down?  Perhaps they are on their way to Afghanistan, to fight an anti-terror regime that most of the world would rather just watch.

Homeland security.  Now that’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.  How the hell can our homeland be safe if we are swimming in guns?  Sure sounds like homeland lunacy to me.

Anyway, I fear our nation and our world are going to the dogs.  Personally and literally speaking, that is not so bad: